Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Corona-Goggles

Call me a sucker for happy endings for most of my life, a real rabid hope-fiend, but you know what? All and the same, I'm not comfortable with an "All is Well" message from President Trump regarding the coronavirus situation or the economy, especially since his last all is well message was about the retaliatory shelling of our troops in Iraq, when he said everything was fine, and a month later, it turns out over a hundred have brain trauma.  The White House is now asking for funds to prepare, fight, cure, contain, but that's now. A literal minute ago, his budget was calling for cuts to the CDC.

When Trump Tweets: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock market starting to look very good to me!", that last sentence feels like the point he was building up to--the purpose for the Tweet at all.

The coronavirus is making the economy look bad, damnit! Does that sound a little awful? But that's the rub:

With the possibility of a U.S. outbreak growing by the day, Trump allies and advisers have grown increasingly worried that a botched coronavirus response will hit the U.S. economy. Even Donald Trump Jr. has mused to associates he hopes the White House does not screw up the response and put the president’s best reelection message at risk, said two individuals with knowledge of his comments.

“Trump’s reelection effort is so closely tied to the strength of the stock market and the economy,” said Moore, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and 2016 Trump campaign adviser. “Anything that shakes us off of that pro-growth track is a concern, but I think the view of officials in the White House is that this will be contained.”

And as we all know, Trump doesn't fail, he can only be failed. This is a worry I have about this administration's response; that they will put a happy face on any news or spread misinformation, like Trump's comments not that long ago that warmer weather might stop the spread of the disease. Already, prize-winning pro-Trump propagandist, Rush Limbaugh, is comparing coronavirus to the common cold and calling it part of an "effort to get Trump".  That sort of thing is really irresponsible. Taking the crisis seriously and not spreading conspiracy theories (like the one about how the coronavirus was started, as spread by Tom Cotton and others) is pretty important right now, not whatever this is.

UPDATE: Contrary to Trump and Larry Kudlow, the CDC is very concerned.



1 comment:

Ten Bears said...

I shared at Comrade Misfit's earlier: Been hanging back on this, as is my wont, see what things looks like before I ... ahhh, commit. What I've seen of the bat flu is no worse than the bird flu that was going to kill us all fifteen or so years ago. Turns out that was just a big push to sell Donald Rumsfelt's Tamiflu© and wo, what to you know... there's a run on flu shots and concerns there may not be enough to go 'round. Not to mention we've seen evidence of drumpf uck and the 'tards manipulating the stock market with short-term crises, my bet is someone's making a bundle.

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